2019 is shaping up to be an interesting year so far: new job, new hobbies, change of life direction. All the usual. But I’m planning how to break down the rest of the year.

I’m going to make this blog the main focus for all the things I’m trying to do. A central repository for projects, coding, work, rest and play.

I’m not sure how may times I’m going to post, but I’d really like to make future posts informative and useful. So bear that in mind.

This is what I do.

DevAcademy.co.uk

During the daylight hours, these are the guys that I project manage for. I get great opportunities to meet interesting people / organisations. I also work on developing people’s technical skills to help them change their lives. All very rewarding. I’m certainly going to try and do more of that this year, f’sho.

we make small, beautiful games.

Sparkwood and 21

My wonderful and scrambled organisation that seems to have settled down as some sort of Game Development organisation is still knocking about.

I’m working on games. Two games. Currently doing a lot of background stuff so there’s nothing to be seen there for a while. When something does finally happen you’re totally going to know about it here.

Skinny Feels

This is the band I’m part of. When I can’t sleep I make unusual musical tunes that come under the Skinny Feels umbrella.

I’m currently working on an EP called Make Albion Great Again. It’s a series of songs that have been inspired or have inspired some folk horror short stories. Hopefully, all will be published and released by the end of the year. But we shall see. That’s a very positive outlook.

CodeMonkey

Yes, that’s right. I’m learning how to code properly. Design is dead! Long live code!

Anyways, I’m learning Swift so I can make apps for the Mac. I have a bunch of ideas and I want to see if I can make any of them see the light.

After that I’m going to learn Python as it’s a great all-round language and it’s close to GodotEngine code. And that’s what I’m going to be using to make the games for Sparkwood and 21. Because it’s open source. And has a fairly low barrier to entry. Other than the whole learn Python bit.

One of the things I get up to when I can’t sleep is to make music. It traditionally started out with me trying to make retro goth music and has now currently evolved into creating soundtracks for films that don’t exist.

I love this, it gives me a theme to hang my music together and it also gives me opportunities to try different styles. Both musically and visually. The initial release has a few teething issues with mixing older work with newer work and having, what was in essence, a dull theme.

For the soundtrack I’m currently working on, there’s a whole theme around British folk history, nostalgia and darkness. And so here are some of the images I’ve been creating to help me get the mood right.

Sparkwood and 21

As you are probably aware, Sparkwood and 21 is not only a location in Twin Peaks where Laura Palmer was last seen alive, but also the name of my indie game development studio. It’s been through a lot of iterations and its current form (after moving from Amsterdam to Bristol to Bath) is making small, beautiful games.

Blender 3D

I taught myself Blender 3D by creating a piece of art every single day for 100 days and ever since I’ve loved the software, the potential it has and the community of technical and creative people that surround it. I have even added it to my workflow as another graphic design service I offer people and it complements my skill set incredibly well. But when it comes to Sparkwood and 21 I am using it as one of the tools to help with creating video games. Along with Godot, Piskel, Krita and occasionally Unreal Engine.

What’s Next?

What I would like out of this year long exploration throughout 2019 is two side scrolling-platform games that my children can play that don’t have any loot boxes, adverts, weird tracking and annoying interruptions.

Not sure why, but I’ve always spent a fair wodge of my spare time teaching myself stuff. I just keep on learning new things. Currently, it’s coding. In particular: Swift and Python.

In that order.

The reasoning? If I learn Swift then I can develop apps and software for macOS, iOS etc. Apparently, this is the future.

If I learn Python, I can use it to do practically anything. In my case: plugins for Blender, weird music stuff and possibly games.

Well, that’s the plan anyway.

And here’s the courses I’ve taken so far to point me in this direction.

As you can see, I started off learning about a game engine. Which I shall utilise later to make a computer game for each of my children.

Then I started with web design because I have had experience in that before. I was going to refresh my HTML / CSS / JS knowledge and then learn in-depth JavaScript because then I can make apps for anything using the Electron Platform. Which is what I want to do.

Then I remembered web design annoys me and decided to do some research into useful programming languages to learn. Javascript popped out as one of the best, but as it’s mostly for web design I went for Mac specific language (Swift) as I have one and Python as great and simple all-rounder and could help me with my 3D / design stuff and music.

So I’m starting with Swift and macOS development as I have ideas for a bunch of tools for creative freelancers, for electronic musicians and for augmented reality artwork in geographically accurate locations.

I’ve been experimenting with musical soundscapes for a little while. Nothing great and exciting, but more drone repetitive sort of sounds wrapped together into a loosely-based album of sorts. Which I have decided to call OFFICIAL SOUNDTRACK.

It’s not my best work, but I believe it’s better to have something out there that I can now work on developing into something new and exciting. (i.e. I’m starting work on its sequel: Make Albion Great Again, which will be some sort of Folk Horror EP with thumping dark sounds).

As I’m an annoying designer / creative type as well I’m going to be creating all the necessary artwork, branding, videos, prints and so on and so forth with the idea that it will become this weird little musical art project. And as long as it makes me happy, that’s all that really matters in the end.

If you want to find out more (or sign up to the mailing list) you can at the website skinnyfeels.band

I used to be able to get on writing. I used to be able to write. Well, I used to be able to write well. I’ve had books published (kinda) and I’ve had to write all sorts of essays, project briefs, advertising copy and whatnot.

Back in the day it was part of my creative process to write three (3) pages of absolute drivel first thing in the morning just to get all the blockages and stupid looping brain thoughts out of the way so I had clearer head that could concentrate upon using words again.

But somewhere along the way of things I feel like I’ve forgotten how to actually write. Probably because of time constraints, a change of passions and the rise of dull thumb-flicking social media. I’ve ended up consuming words and not creating them.

I can still bang out a series of statements like there’s no tomorrow. Linking them, however, into some sort of cohesive prose with a beginning, a muddle, and an end seems harder and harder to do. I guess I’m out of practice. And I feel bad about it.

Well, sorry for you, but I’m going to try and change that. So occasionally there are going to be articles on this blog that I’ve attempted to write to get better at writing and to explore various things I am interested in.

Skip over them if you want. Unless you find whatever it is more interesting than the most interesting thing you could be doing right now. But I reckon if I keep writing them, they might get better, more interesting and so on and so forth.